


Of Monsters and Men, and one Woman.

by jugglequeen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-03-17 20:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18972139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugglequeen/pseuds/jugglequeen
Summary: Mulder and Scully meet their old foe and need to clear something up.





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh, isn't this nice? A family reunion."

A cold, familiar voice suddenly filled the air and made Mulder and Scully look in the direction it was coming from. A figure appeared slowly from the shadows a weapon trained at them, showing them a smug smile. 

"Spender," Mulder spat. 

They had been trying to find an exit out of the huge, run-down and abandoned factory complex where they had found Jackson hiding from his pursuers. Initially, the boy hadn't been willing to let his birth parents interfere, insisting he could look out for himself, but eventually, he had called for Scully through the communication channel he had used before. He was still a teenager, only seventeen years old, traumatized and alone after the assassination of his adoptive parents. Of course, Scully and Mulder had rushed to their son's side, armed and more than ready to protect him from whoever wanted to harm him. 

They hadn't expected their old foe to show up at the scene, though. Not after the enemies had been presenting themselves as Purlieu lately. But the agents should have known better, should have anticipated that this man was pulling the strings in the background and would make his appearance somewhere along the road. So, here he was: Carl Gerhard Busch, C.G.B. Spender, Cancer Man, the Cigarette Smoking Man...good God, if there was one person they could name as the evil incarnate, it would be him. 

Spender's voice was sugar-sweet but full of dishonesty as always. "Hello, Fox. Dana. I see you have reunited with your offspring after having cut the ties so harshly when he was a baby. Congratulations. I'm happy for you." A disdainful sneer was spreading on his face, proof of his feeling of superiority. He pulled a trademark cigarette out of his pocket with his free hand, put it to his mouth, fished for a lighter in the same pocket, lit it, took a slow, deep draw, then calmly watched how the smoke was leaving his mouth. "The three of us haven't seen each other in a while." His eyes fell on Scully. He scrutinized her from head to toe, unable to conceal that he liked what he saw. "Dana, you look fabulous. What a great pleasure to see you again after all we've been through together."

Scully took a few steps backward, wrapping her arms around herself. "I can't say that I'm sharing the sentiment. If I had been given a choice, I wouldn't have gone through anything with you," she snapped. 

Spender only smiled at the unfriendly retort as if he hadn't expected anything else from her. He hadn't been lying though, he was enjoying this immensely. He had been looking forward to this particular moment for a very long time and he was going to savor every minute of it. 

"Why so rude, Agent Scully? I remember fondly the nice little road trip we took some years ago, the three days and nights we spent together, the gourmet dinner at a deluxe restaurant prepared by a renowned chef. I will certainly never forget how stunning you looked in the dress I gave you. The black one with those little straps and low neckline." His eyes fell on her chest. "I sincerely hope you let Agent Mulder see you in that dress."

"I burned it," Scully hissed. The knot deep within her tightened. Of course, she remembered the trip, but not with the same glee as the Smoking Man. She felt shame and embarrassment, even guilt when she thought of how naïve and imprudent she had been to follow him without telling Mulder. Not only had it left her with nothing but a blank CD-ROM and empty promises but also with a cracked partnership. It had taken them a while to repair their relationship, until Mulder was able to forgive her and Scully to forgive herself. 

"What a pity. It was such an expensive dress. And it suited you so well. You were a feast for the eyes for everyone in the restaurant that night, Dana." 

Spender let the words roll off his tongue with a delightful smile on his lips. Unabashedly, he ogled Scully's body, his eyes wandering slowly from her slender waist, across her chest, and up to her face. He looked into her eyes probingly before starting to walk around her, giving her the once over. When he took a luxurious draw on his cigarette, his eyes resting on her backside, Mulder had enough. 

"Cut the crap, you sick bastard! What do you want?" 

Spender kept his eyes on Scully for another beat, then turned around in exaggerated casualness, tsking and looking at Mulder with disapproval. 

"Fox, that's not the way you should speak to your father."

A sour laugh escaped Mulder's throat. He shook his head and threw a side glance at Jackson. The boy had no idea of what was going on in front of him but watched the adults intently. His biological parents had a history with this threatening old man, but not a friendly one. The way they had been addressed by their first names instead of their customary way of calling each other by their last names had sounded like a mockery, not like a sign of familiarity or friendship. 

Spender had his weapon pointed alternately at each of them and enjoyed his position of advantage. Scully had positioned herself in the line of fire in movements so small they were barely perceptible, sheltering Jackson off the weapon's potential trajectory. This, thankfully, had gone unnoticed by Spender but not by the boy, and it made him feel protected and cared for but also anxious. This man meant business, that much was clear. 

"If you came here to satisfy your sick need of feeling more powerful than us, go ahead. Make fun of us, remember all the moments you held our lives in your hands, but leave our son out of it. Let him go." Scully's voice was strong and full of determination. If she was apprehensive, she did a hell of a job not showing it. 

"Aaaw, mama bear is protecting her cub,” the Smoking Man snarled. “How sweet. You should have stood by your son during his childhood instead of giving him to two ignorant and completely overstrained people who'd never had the ability to protect him. Did you really believe it would be that easy to hide him?" He fell silent as if giving her time to answer, watching as Scully exchanged an anxious look with Mulder, he then chuckled. "I always knew where he was. I knew of his broken arm at the age of five, I attended his Little League games, watched him celebrate his first home run, and I know his childhood sweetheart's name was Chelsea."

"What the fuck?" Jackson cried out, shocked by what he was hearing. He had no idea who this man was and why he had such an interest in him. Before he could say any more, Scully took a few steps forward until the man's weapon almost touched her chest, shielding Jackson even more. Her back and shoulders were straightened and her chin was up, but her face had lost its color. She was pale and her voice was a bit shaky now. 

"Ever heard of the Constitution, Spender? The 14th Amendment and the Right to Privacy?" 

Her question was met by a laugh. Spender put his cigarette to his lips, drew with relish, then let the butt fall to the ground and stepped on it. The grinding noise of the sole of his shoe stubbing out the smoking butt on the floor reverberated through the place, grotesquely amplified by the high concrete walls surrounding them. 

"Is that really meant to be a serious question, Agent Scully? You know as well as I do that the Constitution is nothing more but the democratic fig leaf for governmental institutions to pretend they let legitimacy and righteousness guide them. You and Agent Mulder also haven't always played by the book as far as I remember, so spare me your moral indignation."

"What is your interest in our son?” Scully asked. “Have you been afraid of losing your power over us, is that why you spied on his childhood? To use him as leverage over us after all?" 

The Smoking Man shook his head and grinned. "Agent Scully, I've never lost my power over you. Have you forgotten the little something in your neck?" 

Jackson didn't understand what this meant and why it was knocking the wind out of his birth mother. The man's words were clearly meant to provoke her, and it was working. She gasped and touched a spot at the back of her neck right at the bottom of her hairline. Jackson didn't know what that 'little something' was and what it had to do with anything, what he saw were Scully's trembling fingertips rubbing a spot on her neck as if it itched. The man definitely had succeeded in rendering her speechless. 

Not so Mulder. He looked like he was regurgitating a dustball when he spoke and his voice sounded like a rabid dog's growl. "You son-of-a-bitch!"

"You have something to say, Agent Mulder? Fox?"

"Scully asked you a question. What's your interest in Jackson? Why are you here?" 

Spender only hummed, pulled another cigarette out of his jacket and lit it. The package was empty now. He crumpled it up and let it fall to the ground next to the butt he had thrown there already. Jackson had to think of his mama who had taught him never to litter. Despite the tenseness of the situation and the much worse things this man was clearly capable of, this childish act of disrespect made the boy's blood rise. His birth parents were scared by this guy who was playing a game of cat-and-mouse with them, that much was obvious, and Jackson asked himself if they remembered that he had a biological advantage he could use to chase this unbearable chain smoker away. 

"I told you at the very beginning that I was looking forward to a family reunion. Have you not listened? A father wants to see his son once in a while," Spender supplied. 

"Bill Mulder was my father, *you* have never been a father to me."

"Well...son...genetics don't lie. A biological fact is a biological fact. You may call Bill Mulder whatever you want, all you got from him was his name. But that's another story. Anyway, I wasn't talking about you and me, Fox." 

As the last words were leaving his mouth, Spender turned away from Mulder and laid his eyes on Jackson. The boy froze, every muscle of his body strained. Mulder and Scully looked at each other with slack expressions on their faces. The already strung up atmosphere was tensing up even more. 

"Who were you talking about then?" Mulder hissed. 

Of course, there were not that many other possibilities of who he could have been talking about. Although Mulder, Scully, and Jackson were anticipating an answer, they were also fearing it. It seemed like time was standing still. Somewhere in the factory there had to be a broken pipe because the constant dripping of water could be heard. It echoed through the deserted place, which was cold, dirty, and scarcely lit. The way the Smoking Man's face was illuminated whenever he drew on his cigarette reminded Jackson of his first slumber party when his papa told creepy stories and scared them holding a flashlight under his chin. This man was also creepy, but not in a playful manner like his papa. This man was dangerous and Jackson felt unease running up his spine as the man fixed his cold eyes on him, saying nothing, simply staring at him. 

When Spender finally chose to answer, all three of them seemed to hold their breaths. Looking noticeably at Jackson and in a tone of voice more suitable for ordering a glass of Chardonnay in a fancy restaurant than wrecking the life three people had just begun to re-establish together, he said, "well, Fox, if you can't put two and two together yourself, it shall be my pleasure to break this to you: when I said I was looking forward to seeing my son, I was talking about this young lad here."

Boom! The bomb had exploded and nobody had thought of taking cover. 

Scully's head flew around. Her hand had left her neck and clutched at her chest instead. She bore her eyes into Spender’s as if she wanted to read his mind, backing away from him at the same time. Mulder's brows were drawn together, his glance darting between Scully and Spender looking for answers in their faces. Jackson was just standing there like a pillar of salt. This guy, this horrible smoker, had just suggested he was his father, now being the third person claiming this particular family bond with him. 

How had his life become such a mess? A few months ago, everything had still been fine. He had some peculiar abilities, granted, but he knew how to handle them...most of the time. He had a mama and a papa who loved him dearly, he had a home, he had friends. His life was in order. And then the broad-shouldered men in black suits had shown up, sitting for hours in armed dark limousines across the street, observing him, and an alarm inside his head had gotten off. Then the visions had started, visions of spaceships, of a worldwide pandemic, an apocalypse, and of a woman with red hair. All of this had brought him here, to an old, chain-smoking moron who was telling him he was his father. What a freak show his life had become. 

“Bullshit!” Mulder grunted eventually, pulling Jackson out of his dark thoughts. “After all these years, you think we’d fall for your dirty tricks, Spender?" Scully's hand was still pressed to her chest. Slowly moving further away from the Smoking Man she whispered, now unable to conceal her apprehension, "what exactly are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything, just stating the biological facts. Aren't facts something you've always been so keen on finding, Doctor Scully? And the fact is that *I* am William's...uh, sorry, young man...Jackson's father. He is *my* son, not Agent Mulder's."

Hearing him speak it out loud only made things worse. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Mulder, Scully, and Jackson could barely breathe. The mere idea was earth-shattering. It turned their world upside down, a world that had just begun to reset since the three of them had been reunited. Jackson looked helplessly at who he believed to be his birth father - Mulder - the man who had hugged him so fiercely while whispering in his ear, "I've been looking for you forever", and "I held you when you were a baby". 

Mulder was thunderstruck himself, hit to the core, struggling to process the words the old man had just spoken. It was Scully who rediscovered her voice first. "I've never heard such nonsense," she grunted, parts of her self-confidence regained. "If it wasn't so damn sickening, I'd laugh. Wouldn't I know if we had intercourse?" Mulder's face contorted into a pained grimace at that. He winced unmistakably, earning himself the Smoking Man's pitiful smile. Then Spender turned toward Scully again, the corners of his mouth curving up in a smug smile while answering her in a too-sweet voice, "how would you know? You were sedated."

Mulder groaned again, but Scully remained composed, stoic almost. "You mistreated me while I was unconscious." 

It came out like a statement, not a question. Jackson was impressed by how calm she sounded. No, impressed was the wrong word. Confused. How could she make such an outrageous allegation and remain so cool? Unlike her, Mulder was not able to keep his composure. The words were growing from the deep of his throat, raw and desperate. "If you harmed her, you’ll pay for it. I will make sure you do, even if it's the last thing that I do." 

"I didn't harm her, I gave her what she longed for the most. What you couldn't give her, Fox." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Hadn't you donated sperm for Agent Scully to get pregnant just a few months earlier, and hadn't the procedure failed? Well, I was more successful," Spender said with twisted satisfaction. 

Scully threw Mulder a worried glance and wrapped her arms around her waist once again. She swallowed uncomfortably before she spoke. "You impregnated me? You?" This time, it was a question. An unsettling, agonizing, disgusting question. 

"Not the way you may think, Dana. With science. I got you pregnant with science. I had the best doctors care for you and perform the transfer of the ova we had gotten from you, inseminated with sperm I had provided. You would have been thrilled to be a part of a scientific experiment of this immeasurable value, had I been able to tell you then." 

The man was speaking in a manner so calm and unfazed he really had to believe that what he was saying was totally normal, whereas, in fact, it was totally crazy. The words 'sedation', 'insemination', and 'experiment' were swirling around in Jackson's head and it made him wonder what kind of trouble he had ended up in. This crazy shit, which had started with the men in the black suits following his every step, seemed to get weirder every day. 

"Those weren't doctors, those were rapists. *You* are a rapist. You hadn't gotten my ova, you'd taken it from me against my will. That was medical rape, twice, and no scientific experiment. Highly unethical and a violation of my right to physical integrity. I can't remember signing a declaration of consent." 

Again, the restraint with which she was talking was remarkable. Mulder, who could hardly contain himself, who looked like he wanted to put his hands around Spender’s neck and press until the last bit of air left his lungs, was puzzled by her cool demeanor. Hadn't she just been told that their baby wasn't theirs but hers and…? He couldn't even bring himself to think the unthinkable. The mere thought of it made him want to gag. It would mean Jackson wasn't his son, but his half-brother. It would mean Scully hadn't conceived, carried, given birth to and nursed his son, but that Cancer Man's. He felt a tingling sensation at the back of his throat. 

Spender clicked his tongue. "A declaration of consent...you amuse me, Agent Scully. You of all people should know I act on behalf of a circle of people who don't let formalities bind them. Your consent is irrelevant. We are working toward a larger goal, a goal you know fairly well."

"Creating a superior race and ruling the world," Scully spat out indignantly.

"Creating a human-alien hybrid, achieving what herds of scientists have tried but failed so far. William was our first success."

The world started to spin around Jackson. What had this caricature of a human being just called him? A human-alien hybrid? He had understood by now that this kid they were talking about all the time, William, was him. He was Jackson Van De Kamp formerly known as William, the Alien. How on earth had he been drawn into this crazy shit?

"He isn't yours, he is ours. Mulder's and mine. He is not one of your lab rats. He is *our* son, and *we* made him."

She sounded so sure and Jackson wanted to believe her so badly. He didn't want to have anything to do with this unhinged, nicotine-addicted lunatic. He didn't want to be special, let alone superior. He wanted normalcy, he wanted to be just a normal boy. Kids his age shouldn't have to deal with crap like this. He wondered how his birth parents had managed to get themselves into this fucked-up mess and if his adoption had anything to do with it. His birth mother, Dana, had talked about bringing him to safety when she had spoken to what she had believed was his dead body in the morgue. 

The Smoking Man was standing in front of her, towering over her. His legs apart and his chin up, he was looking down on her with a self-satisfied expression. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly before he spoke. "Dana, how can you be so sure?" The way he called her by her first name again, his voice a mix of superficial friendliness and subtle wickedness, made Jackson's blood run cold. He didn't know this man who was inhaling one cigarette after another, but he radiated malice with every fiber of his being. The way he conversed, how he played with his birth parents, how he gloated when he was shooting his poisoned arrows at them. But what was clearly meant as a fatal wound bounced right off of her this time. 

"Do you really believe I was so naïve as to accept my pregnancy as a God-given miracle?” she asked, her lips curving into a slight smile. Spender's expression froze. “I knew my medical condition, that I was barren, a situation you were not entirely blameless in. Of course, I asked myself how I had been able to conceive. Emily's short life and what had been done to me during my abduction was ample proof of what you and your kind were able and willing to do. I needed to know my baby was normal and healthy, so I sought proof of what I felt so strongly - that my baby was Mulder's.” She looked at Mulder, throwing him a reassuring glance before she turned back to Spender and continued. “I’m a scientist, and scientists conduct scientific tests to get proof. That's exactly what I did. As soon as William was born, I had a DNA paternity test done. Three times. I supervised all three procedures myself to be a hundred percent sure the results were reliable. They were, and they showed a match between Mulder and William. There is no doubt whatsoever that they are father and son."

The Smoking Man's once self-assured outer appearance was cracking even more. He nervously fingered the lighter in his hand and his right eyelid twitched when he spoke. "That's impossible! I watched over your insemination. I was told the transfer of the fertilized eggs had been a success. And you were diagnosed as pregnant shortly thereafter, weren't you? So it had to have been successful."

"The transfer might have been successful, but that doesn't necessarily mean the eggs made it into the uterine wall, especially if there already was an egg attached to it, an egg that had gotten there naturally. I did the math, believe me. I calculated the possibility of ovulation, natural conception and implantation back and forth, it's highly plausible that I was already pregnant when you took me on your little trip. Unbeknownst to me, and obviously also unbeknownst to you and your so-called doctors. They neglected to test for pregnancy before they performed the transfer, which is, by the way, a standard procedure in every fertility clinic."

Spender's cool appearance was now falling to pieces before their eyes. He looked like a deflating balloon. He hadn't seen this coming. Just a few minutes ago, he had felt so superior, but this woman was making him dizzy with her scientific narrative. "I...I don't believe this," he stammered. 

"I was pregnant with Mulder’s child," Scully continued coolly. "A real scientist rules out everything that has the potential to ruin an experiment, but your doctors weren't thorough enough. Too bad for you.” 

She waited, letting her words take effect. After what seemed an eternity to all the people listening to her, she went on. 

“You were wrong all these years believing William was your genetic offspring. You may have a biological connection to Mulder, but that's all there is. You don't belong to this family, it's just the three of us: Jackson, Mulder, and me. Now get your sorry ass out of here before I put a bullet through your head for all the times you abused me and the ones I Ioved."

Spender swallowed all of it, every word, and he had difficulties getting them down. But he was a vicious man used to dealing in vicious circles, he wasn't knocked down easily. He wouldn't have survived all these years among reckless men, had he not had the capacity to take a blow. He strolled over to Scully slowly placing one foot in front of the other, his eyes never leaving her. He drew a circle around her so small he was almost touching her, lighting yet another cigarette he procured out of a new pack. 

"I am the one with a weapon in my hand, Agent Scully. You are aware that I could shoot you before you even pulled yours out of the holster." His firearm trained at her, he circled her once more until he came to a halt in front her, eyeing her intensely. "Give me your gun!” He demanded harshly now, holding out his hand, palm up. 

Jackson was amazed by how fast the man had recovered. His ice-cold eyes, bereft of any sign of emotion, bore into his birth mother. She held her ground for a moment but then obeyed and handed him her gun. Then he turned to Mulder who reluctantly pulled his weapon out of his hip holster and let it dangle on his outstretched index finger in front of the man's face. The smoker unhooked it with a satisfied grin and put it away. He was in possession of three firearms now, he held all the power despite the momentary crack in his façade a few minutes ago. "Do you still feel like threatening me, Agent Scully?" he asked, mocking his now defenseless opponents. 

"One day, you will pay for what you've done, Spender. One day, justice will be served and you will rot in hell where you belong," Scully spat at him, her chin up. 

Jackson admired her for her bravery, for how she stood up to that man who was holding all the aces. The boy hummed a low-key Hallelujah, so silent only Mulder, who was standing right behind him, could hear it. He acknowledged it in return with a muffled snorting only audible for Jackson. Father and son in shared admiration for this tiny woman's greatness.

Scully had impressed Spender too, but he wouldn't let anyone know. He made sure to thread enough irony into his voice replying, "ah, Dana, let me compliment you on your bravado and your optimism, but for men like me, there will always be a way out. I'm not so sure about you though. It seems to me your current position is quite precarious." He lifted his gun, pointed it at her forehead, and released the safety catch. The metallic click was so loud, amplified by the surroundings, it made Mulder's and Jackson's eardrums vibrate. 

Mulder's right hand tingled. Not many people knew he still carried a second weapon at his ankle. If only he could reach down there, he might be able to get it out before Spender realized what was happening. He bent forward and groaned, holding his stomach with both hands as if he was about to throw up. When his ankle was within reach, he slowly stretched his right hand out, continuing the gagging sounds to keep up the illusion. He was almost there, could already feel the hard steel under the fabric of his pants leg, when the sound of a weapon falling to the ground echoed through the factory hall. 

Mulder looked up, expecting to see Spender's gun still aimed at Scully's head, but what he saw was Spender's face twisted in horror. He was holding up his empty hands and was gasping for air like a fish out of the water. Mulder had never seen this man in anything but a smug pose, arrogant and overbearing, but this was fear, mortal fear.

Mulder rose completely and caught Scully's sideways glance. By the look of the confused lines on her forehead, she was as clueless as he was about what was going on. They both watched as Spender stumbled a few steps backward and tripped over his own feet transfixed by something behind them. His mouth opened but no words came out, only a choked scream. Scully and Mulder looked wildly around for the source of his terror but saw nothing. The building was completely empty save for them and quiet but for the whimpers of the now weak, powerless man. 

Mulder looked over at his son and noticed that he was the only one who seemed to be in control. And then realization dawned him. Jackson was pulling one of his tricks. He was creating an alternate reality for Spender, maybe one of his gruesome monsters. Mulder couldn't tell, he couldn’t see what Spender saw, and neither could Scully, given the puzzled look on her face. 

In the end, it didn't matter what the smoker saw, the only thing that mattered was that he got on all fours and started crawling away, whining like a baby. Watching him coil in mortal fear was striking a chord within Mulder that surprised him. He never imagined he could rejoice in the suffering of another human being, not even a man he loathed from the bottom of his heart, but all he could feel was satisfaction. It would have been easy to reach for his weapon now and bring this to an end for good, to make Spender pay with his life for all he had done to them, but Mulder couldn't bring himself to do it. He just watched as their enemy of twenty-five years got awkwardly to his feet, his tail between his legs, and started running without turning back to them once again.

When the Smoking Man was gone, Scully turned around to look at Mulder and Jackson. "What the hell was that?" she asked, still unable to understand why he had fled. "One minute he’s threatening to shoot us, and the next he can't get out of here fast enough."

"Jackson?" Mulder only said, throwing his son a challenging look.

"He must have seen something that scared him a bit," Jackson replied looking at the space between his feet.

"A bit? He was terrified!" Scully said. 

There had to be something really interesting on the floor because Jackson wouldn't look up to meet his birth parents' eyes. "Yeah, well..."

"You created a false reality for him, right? Like you did for us when we were at your parents' house."

Jackson answered Mulder's question with a shrug of his shoulders. He had used his powers more than once for the wrong reasons, to tease people or scare them just for fun, and had been berated for it repeatedly. This had seemed like a good moment to use them, but he wasn't quite sure if it would be appreciated or not. "Someone had to do something. I couldn't stand this asshole and his self-satisfied grin any longer," he offered as an explanation. 

"Why didn't we see it?" Scully asked. 

"I didn't make you see it, only him."

"You can decide who sees what you create and who doesn't?"

Jackson nodded. "You were the only one who saw me as Peter Wong in front of the hospital."

Scully's heart ached a little thinking back to that moment. She had been longing for contact to her son for so long, and then he had been standing in front of her, talking to her, touching her, and she hadn't known it had been him. She had felt a strange connection to this man who had bumped into her, who had been so compassionate about the broken snow globe and who had smiled at her when she told him she liked this particular windmill she was holding in her hands. 

"Did you bump into me on purpose?" 

"Sure." 

"Why?" 

"I was curious about you after what you'd said to me in the morgue." 

More heartache. Unknowing of what he was doing to her, Jackson continued. "You sounded so sad and so...honest. And I also had to make sure you'd gotten my message about the windmill. The snow globe in your hands showed me you had."

"So our meeting at the gas station wasn't a coincidence either." 

"Of course not. I had something else to say to you." 

If filled her with joy that despite her giving him away as a baby, he had wanted to establish contact. Even if without revealing his identity. 

"The Malcolm X quote," Scully supplied. 

"Right. I hoped you'd draw the right conclusions and realize it was me you'd talked to."

"Mulder recognized the quote and we both realized at the same time it must have been you. My heart almost burst when I saw myself talking to my son, my living son, on the surveillance tape." 

"Surveillance tape?"

"The gas station had a CCTV system," Mulder explained. "On the surveillance tape, you were being you and not some pickup artist."

"Yeah, well, my mind is just so strong. I can manipulate people's perceptions but not a machine." 

"Still, it's a powerful talent you've got there," Scully noted.

"A talent?" Jackson chuckled. "I see it more as a curse. It makes me an outsider. People think I'm a freak. Which I probably am. It has come in handy a few times lately though."

Scully took a step toward him. She would have liked to embrace him, pull him to her chest, just like Mulder had done at the motel when the two had first met, but instead, she only put her hands on his shoulders to make him look at her. "Listen, Jackson, you are *not* a freak. And none of this is your fault. You are who you are because you are our son, and from now on, Mulder and I will care for you. We will protect you. You are not alone."

As much as Mulder enjoyed watching mother and son talk to each other, he also got increasingly nervous. What if Spender had a backup? What if he knew and simply forgot for a moment about Jackson's ability to create alternate realities and realized he had been fooled once he had run far enough and cooled down his nerves? They had to get out of this building and off the premises as quickly as possible. 

"Guys, let's get in the car and out of here. Spender doesn't work alone, and I don't want to be here when one of his cronies shows up to finish what he hasn't been able to do."

"You're right, Mulder. Come on, Jackson. We'll get somewhere safe," Scully said, nudging the boy forward with her hand on his shoulder. 

They ran outside through the same steel door the Smoking Man had fled through and jumped into Scully's SUV. Mulder took the seat behind the steering wheel, Scully the passenger seat. Jackson climbed into the back. "Buckle up, Jackson," Scully tossed over her left shoulder in full maternal mode, "we will have to take some unexpected turns if someone follows us." 

But no one followed them. It was a quiet ride, each of them taking their time to process what had happened and what had been said in the factory building. It was Jackson who finally broke the silence. 

"You really are my parents, right? Both of you." His eyes met Mulder's in the rearview mirror, Scully turned around in the passenger seat and looked at him. It took him a moment until he was able to meet her intensive gaze, but then the direct connection enabled him to clarify. "What this man said was bullshit. That I am a product of a scientific experiment, that he...uh...that he made you pregnant with me against your will." 

"He tried, but he failed," she said, maintaining their eye-contact without blinking. "I am absolutely certain that you are our son, Jackson. Mulder's and mine. You are not an experiment. You were conceived in an act of love." Scully glanced briefly at Mulder after having put so much emphasis on the word 'love' that her voice trembled. He kept his eyes on the street but nodded and smiled. "Not in a laboratory," she concluded. 

"But..." Jackson left the rest unsaid. He threw his hands in the air and let himself fall back against the backrest.

"But what?" Scully probed. 

"Why am I like this? So...creepy?" 

Scully unbuckled her seat belt and climbed across the middle console into the back to join Jackson. She didn't want to talk to him about this any longer twisting her neck. She needed to be able to look him in the eye. She would have wanted to take his hands in hers and squeeze them to assure him but didn't dare. "You are *not* creepy," she said, laying her hand gently on his lower arm instead, hoping he wouldn't pull it back. He didn't. Not instantly anyway, but after a short moment. She berated herself inwardly for invading his personal space against her better judgment. Had she known that he didn't mind her touching him as much as she thought and that his awkwardness around her was caused by not knowing how to interact with a woman he felt so close (she was his mother, for God's sake) and yet so distant rather than resenting her, it wouldn't have hurt quite that much. 

"You haven't seen what else I can do, Dana. Uh, you mind me calling you Dana?" Jackson asked, suddenly uncertain. 

"Oh, uhm...no, not at all. Dana is fine." 

"I mean since he," Jackson tilted his head in Mulder's direction, "calls you Scully." 

"Well, that's a thing between us going back to the time we started out as co-workers. People outside of work usually call me Dana. Friends and family anyway. So Dana is perfectly fine." 

It was a start, wasn't it? Scully didn't dare to hope that one day Jackson would call her something more affectionate, like 'mother' or maybe even 'mom'. She had been a mother to two children and had never been addressed as such by either of them. It was a wound which had never healed. 

Unaware of Scully's inner struggles, Jackson resumed, "great! So, Dana, you haven't seen me do these other things I'm capable of. Like make people explode, for one. You were freaked out, weren't you?" the boy asked looking at Mulder who was observing them in the rear view mirror more than he should, given the fact that he was running at more than 80 miles per hour. "I was glad you made me duck!" he joked from the front, but the joke never made it to the back. Scully and Jackson were too much involved in their conversation to appreciate his effort. 

"Whatever it is that you are capable of, Jackson, it doesn't make you a freak. Most certainly not in our eyes." Scully did her best to assure him of Mulder's and her determination. He needed to know that this time they would stand by him come what may. "You are our son, our flesh and blood, and we love you. Even if you might think otherwise because you were given up for adoption." 

"But why am I like this? If you are my biological parents, and I wasn’t created by this chain-smoking moron, why am I not normal like you? You seem like pretty normal people to me. You are not some aliens or hybrids or whatever this guy was saying I was. You may be a little crazy, but still, you're normal, everyday people."

Scully sighed. "As you might have guessed, we have a history with this man, this chain-smoking moron. He's been using us to his own ends, mistreated us, harmed us time and again. I was abducted as a young woman and had become involved in a sinister, abhorrent plan of a group of ruthless men. Unethical tests were performed on me and my DNA had been tampered with. And the same happened to Mulder, only a few years later. He had been experimented on, manipulated, and mistreated so much that he almost died." 

Scully saw no use in telling Jackson that Mulder had indeed been dead and buried, and that his coming back to the living had been nothing but short of a miracle. What the boy was hearing had to be disturbing enough, giving him more disconcerting details wasn't helpful, so she continued with the facts he needed to know to get the picture. 

"What I'm trying to explain to you is that our genomes have been manipulated, and I take it that's the reason you are who you are. You're a combination of both of us. It's for everyone to see in your looks. You have Mulder's hair and his height, and you have my eyes and my freckles on your nose. Your abilities...well, they are likely a result of what they have done to our genetic material. I don't have any other explanation."

"Wow," was all Jackson said, "you aren't as normal as I thought."

"A lot of people would call us crazy as well. And a bit spooky. At least when it comes to me," Mulder tried for another joke but failed again. Neither Scully nor Jackson laughed.

"You already had powers as a baby, Jackson. You had spun the mobile above your crib once in a crying fit, and you had made a piece of rock hover above your face. And when I had realized that there were people out there holding an interest in you, the man you just met being one of them, I thought the only way to protect you was to hide you in another family far away from us."

"You gave me away to protect me, not to get rid of me." He didn't need to pose this as a question, he had understood. 

"Yes," Scully breathed. "It was the only way to get you out of reach of these people."

"Well, your plan obviously didn't work out. The things he told you about me, they were all true. It creeps me out to imagine this maniac has been watching me all the time." 

Jackson thought back to his childhood, to some of the events the Smoking Man might have been present at: his first day of school, when he scored the decisive penalty which had secured the championship for his soccer team, prom night and his first kiss... A cold shudder ran down his spine. 

“Spender might have watched you, but so have we," Scully said, only now taking the time since she had climbed into the back to buckle herself up. 

"You have?" Jackson asked incredulously. 

"We have?" Mulder echoed, looking flummoxed. Scully had never told Mulder that for all these years someone had been holding a hand over their William, someone who hated the Cigarette Smoking Man just as much as they did. She had feared that had Mulder known there was indeed a way to their son despite the closed adoption, that one day he would have tried to track him down. 

"When I gave you up, I asked a friend to keep an eye on you because I knew that if we did, we would lead them right to you. His name is Jeffrey, and he helped me find you when you started communicating with me through the visions. I demanded he breaks the promise to never disclose your whereabouts to me."

Mulder took a sharp intake of breath. His molars were grinding when he asked, "you hired Jeffrey Spender to protect our son?" 

"I didn't *hire* him. He..." Scully was struggling for words. "Mulder, you were gone, I was all alone in this and I didn't know what to do. He had come to me, had tried to protect William from you-know-who by secretly injecting him with magnetite. Jeffrey Spender was the only ally I had."

He'd been injected with what? Magnetite? For protection? Jackson remembered how the results of his blood work had always made his doctors frown. This story was getting crazier by the minute. But there was something else that had piqued his interest even more. "Spender? This guy's name is Jeffrey Spender? Haven't you called the smoking asshole Spender, too?" Jackson asked. 

"Yes. Jeffrey is his son and my half-brother," Mulder explained. This new information cleared something up Mulder had racked his brain over for some time. "Now I understand why he called me when you were in the hospital after your seizure, Scully. I didn't know what to make of his warning on my voicebox that someone was coming after us."

"This man's son helped you protect me? He's worked against his own father?" 

"This man is also my biological father. It speaks for itself that both his sons loathe him that much, doesn't it? It speaks for how profoundly evil he is." 

Jackson let that sink in for a moment. He couldn't imagine a life where there was so much hatred, so much mistrust, and fighting against each other. He had been brought up by people who loved and cared for each other, he had always felt safe and protected, at least until these strange men in black suits had first shown up. He didn't know his birth parents very well yet, but Dana had spoken of love, both in the morgue and just now, and Mulder acted like he cared about her very much. They were good people, driven by love, not by hate. They made him feel cared for. Since the assassination of the Van De Kamps, he had felt alone and entirely on his own, but it seemed he had belonged to someone all the time. Maybe he had been wrong, maybe Dana and Mulder, his birth parents, were able to protect him after all. He could at least give it a try, couldn't he? "Where are we going?" he asked. 

"We have a house out in the countryside," Mulder answered from the front. "It's secluded and well protected. We should go there, get a hot drink and some food and decide in the comfort of a warm, safe place what to do next. We'll be there in about an hour." 

"Good idea, Mulder. Let's go home," Dana agreed. 

Jackson turned his head away from Scully on the word 'home' and looked out of the window to hide his happy smile. His limbs felt light all of sudden as if a lead weight had been lifted off his body. He was glad that the rest of the trip was silent, that neither of them tried to engage him in a conversation. Mulder focused on driving them to their place as fast as possible, pushing the speed limit, and Dana leaned her head against the headrest. Surprisingly, she was asleep in a matter of minutes. 

"She always falls asleep in the car," Mulder said when he caught Jackson's puzzled look at her sleeping form. "The motion lulls her to sleep." 

Jackson only nodded. For the rest of the ride, he watched the dark scenery passing by outside with a feeling of warmth spreading through his body. The feeling replaced the cold fear he had been so used to during the past months, and it was more than welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wine smells better than smoke.

Jackson didn’t know how long he had been looking outside lost in thought. Next to him in the back seat of the car, Dana was sleeping peacefully. Her head was tilted to the side so her face was turned to him. Jackson studied her face and recognized features he saw when he looked in the mirror: the freckles on her nose, the high cheekbones, the angular jaw. His hair had been reddish as a child but had become darker once he had hit puberty. The color resembled Mulder’s more now, who was sitting in the front steering silently. Jackson looked at the back of his birth father’s head and realized their hair was pretty much alike: dark brown, thick, shiny. He hadn’t shared any resemblances with his mama and pops. Of course not, they had been his adoptive parents, these were the parents whose genetic material he shared. 

Maybe he should stop talking about them like this, labeling them his adoptive versus his birth parents. Maybe it was time to accept he had two sets of parents. One that had raised him and had given him the best childhood he could think of, and one who had always been there and had always cared about him but only now had the ability to act as parents. It broke his heart when he thought about how cruelly the Van De Kamps had been murdered but it also filled him with immense relief to know that he wasn’t alone. And this Mulder-and-Scully duo (he still found it a bit weird that they called each other by their last names) gave him the impression they knew what they were doing. They seemed capable of standing up to his enemies. They sure stood up against that smoking jerk, especially Dana, no matter how hopeless their situation had appeared to be or that she was so much smaller physically.

The car was coming to a halt in front of a steel gate. Mulder turned around and looked at him. “Would you mind opening that gate for me, Jackson?" 

"Not at all,” Jackson said unbuckling his seat belt. 

“Do you see the input box at that pole over there? The code it 1013. And close it again behind us, please. Make sure it’s securely locked.” 

“Yes, sir,” Jackson couldn’t help replying to the more than explicit request. He jumped out of the car and pushed the gate open. It was heavy and creaked quite a bit. He wondered where they were. It was pitch dark, the headlights of the car where the only source of light, they hadn’t come by any sign of human habitation for the past half hour, and now these security measures. Jackson asked himself where they were taking him. 

Mulder drove slowly through the gate Jackson was holding and waited until he had pushed it back shut. The boy heard a click and rattled it a little to check if the bolt had latched completely. The light at the input pad, which had turned green when he had typed in the code, switched back to red. Everything seemed fine, so he hopped back in the car. 

“When Dana said you had a house in the countryside I didn’t expect it to be that far away from human civilization,” Jackson deadpanned while buckling up again. He had no idea how much longer the trip would be.

Mulder chuckled. “Yeah, well, we’ve come to appreciate a certain quiet and isolation from the rest of the world. There was a time we didn’t want to be found. By anyone.” 

Jackson let the words sink in. What was he to make of them? Had they been in a situation like this before? Having to flee and hide from people pursuing them? He didn’t have time to ponder about it much longer as a few minutes later a house came into view. A nice two-story building with gray roofing shingles, green wooden window frames, and a porch. A lamp illuminated the steps leading up to the front door. The place looked cozy and inviting. It actually reminded Jackson a bit of his first home, the Van De Kamp farmhouse in Wyoming, only that it had been much larger with stables for cattle and pasture lands surrounding it, but the place had evinced the same emotions in him: homecoming, comfort, safety. 

Mulder parked the car in front of the porch and cut the engine. He turned around in his seat, looked at Scully who was still sleeping, smiled, then squeezed her knee gently. “Hey, sleepyhead, wake up. We’re home.” It was inconceivable that she was able to sleep after what had happened, Jackson thought. She either had been totally drained or so full of trust for that Mulder guy. 

Said Mulder guy obviously knew what Jackson was thinking. “She can stay awake for more than 36 hours straight if need be, on a stakeout or at a patient’s bed in the hospital, but in a car when she’s not driving or reading a case file, she’s asleep in no time. It’s a gift. I wished I was able to do that. I am a notoriously bad sleeper.” 

Mulder got out of the car, opened the door in the back and bent down to pull her sleeping form out when she stirred. Her eyes opened abruptly, she lifted her head and straightened herself up. “Mmmm, I must have dozed off for a second,” she said, her voice a sleepy mumble. 

“Yes, sure, Scully. Just for a second, as always,” Mulder said. Jackson bit back a chuckle. This was obviously a well-known, recurring pattern in their lives. 

Scully shook her head a little to get rid of the last remnants of sleep and swatted Mulder’s hand away from her knee. “Now let me get out. You weren’t thinking of carrying me, were you?” 

Mulder put his hands up as if he had been told to freeze. He got up from his bent posture, stepped back and sighed. “No, of course not. Heaven forbid that you are not in charge for a split-second.” 

Mulder was annoyed for a moment. Why was it so difficult for her to let him carry her, either figuratively or literally? She had allowed herself to be weak in his arms a few times lately: in the morgue after she had given her speech to what they had believed was their long-lost son in a body bag or in the motel when she hadn’t been able to sleep during that hangman case. She had even admitted her fear that he might find someone else one day. Someone else…what nonsense! As if there could ever be anyone else for Mulder than Scully. 

Jackson noticed the slight tension between them but was distracted from thinking about it by a high-pitched barking. “You have a dog?” he asked, his memory going back to the dog he had as a child: Champ, a Golden Retriever who had followed his every step.

“Yes,” Mulder answered, “his name is Daggoo. He’s Scully’s actually. She stole him from a crime scene.” 

“I didn’t steal him. I saved him from the animal shelter,” Scully defended herself. 

“Secretly scheming to move him in with me because you weren’t allowed to have pets at your place.”

“Oh come on, you’ve got so much more space and you can’t deny that walking him three times a day is doing you good.”

“I’ve always loved how you’re able to manipulate people into thinking something’s good for them when it’s actually good for you,” Mulder said with a smile on his lips. 

“I don’t have to remind you what happened to Queequeg, Mulder, do I? You owed me.” 

Mulder only sighed at Scully’s stern look. 

Jackson had followed their banter, glad on the one hand that the moment of tension had subsided, but also irritated that they had been talking of my place/your place. He had thought they were living together, that they were a couple. They had had him, made him ‘in an act of love’ as Dana had said, they had to have been together at some point. Had they ever been married? Their different last names left him guessing. 

Mulder had opened the front door in the meantime. A white/brown terrier was jumping down the stairs yelping happily and wiggling his tail so much that his whole body was shaking heavily; as if he knew they were coming home from a dreadful endeavor and needed some cheering up. Jackson’s eyes lit up when he saw him and because dogs sensed instinctively who liked them and who didn’t he made toward the boy immediately and jumped up against his legs. “Daggoo, down!” Scully berated him but Jackson wasn’t minding the animal’s affection one bit. “It’s okay, I love dogs,” he said kneeling down petting him behind his ears. “Good boy,” he cooed, “you’re such a beauty, do you know that?” Daggoo licked his hand in return. It was love at first sight between them obviously. 

Mulder and Scully exchanged a short glance, relief written on their faces. Their dog (they could banter as much as they wanted about 'my dog/your dog’, he really and truly was theirs) had conjured a bright smile on their son’s face for the first time since they had been reunited and they enjoyed seeing him so cheerful. Each of them made a silent promise to themselves to do everything in their power to make Jackson’s life happy and carefree again. They watched the boy and the dog for a moment longer, then Mulder ushered everyone inside.

Jackson looked around and felt instantly at home. The living room wasn’t tidied up, there were magazines lying around everywhere, a greasy pizza carton resided atop a coffee table and a blanket had been thrown haphazardly on the couch, but that was exactly what made the place homey. Scully saw it slightly differently though. “Goodness, when did you last clean this place up, Mulder?” 

Bang! Another sign she wasn’t living here. Jackson slowly familiarized himself with the idea that his birth parents - his parents - weren’t a couple. What would this mean for him? Would they take turns caring for him? Like his best friend Pete spent his weekends alternately at his mom’s and dad’s? Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to have called for them after all. But where would he be now without them? With the Smoking Man? Believing this asshole was his father? Jackson’s insides tied a knot. No, he was definitely better off with them than without, no matter what the status of their relationship was. In any case, they were on good terms with each other, that much was clear. They would have to join forces to make this work for him. They owed him that much after they had given him up for adoption, didn’t they? “I don’t mind the mess,” he came to Mulder’s rescue. 

“No, of course, you don’t,” Scully mumbled more to herself than to Jackson, “you’re also a man. I will never understand how one can live in such a mess. What has gone wrong in evolution to burden us with such a neglectful gender when it comes to housework?” She sighed deeply, picking up the pizza carton and throwing it into a trash can. She opened a cabinet, took a cleaning rag out, opened another one which contained the cleaning agents, soaked the rag with water and dishwashing liquid, wrung it out above the sink, then started wiping the coffee table. 

At least she knew her way around the place, Jackson thought. If she really didn’t live here, she was a frequent guest at least. She definitely moved around as if she was at home. She was folding the blanket now and placed it on the couch’s backrest before she took care of the throw pillows, shaking them out and arranging them in an orderly fashion. 

“See, this is something we men will never understand. What is the purpose of an exact arrangement of pillows on a sofa?” Mulder asked shedding his dirty jacket and throwing it carelessly on a chair. “Can you explain to me the scientific nature of pillow arranging, Dr. Scully?”

“It looks nice and tidy, Mulder. It’s aesthetic. It makes the place appear maintained instead of neglected and run-down,” she explained slightly irritated. And as if to strengthen her point, she lifted the jacket off the chair with two fingers and left the room. A moment later a loud thud could be heard, most likely the door of the washing machine. 

Jackson threw Mulder a glance who only shrugged. This was all very familiar to the boy, he had witnessed interactions like this a million times between his parents. His other parents. Jeez, having four parents instead of two wasn’t easily put into words. 

Scully re-entered the living room where Mulder and Jackson were still standing at the same spot, only Daggoo had moved and was making himself comfortable on one of the cushions she had just arranged. She looked at him and sighed, “et tu, Brute?” Jackson didn’t know what that meant and he also didn’t care that much. He was hungry. He hadn’t had a decent meal in days having been on the run from his pursuers. “Uhm, you said we could have something to eat,” he reminded them. 

“Right, sure. I’m afraid the fridge isn’t well-stocked,” Mulder said and Scully chuckled loudly enough to strengthen her point about men and housekeeping. “But we can order something in. What would you like, Jackson? Italian, Thai? Or a burger maybe?” 

“A burger would be great. With bacon and cheese, if it’s possible.” 

“Sure. Fries?” 

Jackson nodded and watched how Mulder pulled out his phone and dialed a number. Wasn’t he going to ask what Dana wanted, he wondered. She didn’t seem to ask herself the same though. Uninvolved in the process of deciding on the food, she slipped out of her shoes, put her feet on the coffee table, reached over to Daggoo and started petting him gently. Jackson listened as Mulder placed his order. 

“Two deluxe double bacon cheeseburgers, please. Onion rings, two large orders of regular fries and one of the sweet potato fries. Make the sweet fries unsalted. A mixed salad with extra arugula instead of the radicchio, no onions but mushrooms, and the non-fat Italian dressing. … Deliver, please. The name is Mulder. 227700 Wallace Road, Farrs Corner. … Yes, I know how far out it is. Tell Pete to give me a call when he’s at the gate. I will meet him down there. He knows the procedure. … Thanks. Bye.” He winked at Jackson when their eyes met and added, “Pete knows he gets a generous tip.”

It didn’t go unnoticed by Jackson that Mulder knew exactly what to order for Dana, and her choice wasn’t exactly mundane. The sweet potato fries were also for her, he presumed. Which real guy ate sweet potato fries? Unsalted, to top it. And if messy homes were typical for men, salads with non-fat dressings were typical for women. No wonder she was so tiny and thin. If her diet had consisted more of greens than anything since her youth, her body had simply lacked the nutrients to grow. At least that was what mama had always told him. “Eat your steak and potatoes, Jackson, so you grow up fit and strong!” He was glad he had inherited his height from Mulder and not from Dana. Small women were cute and evoked a man’s protective instinct (Jackson was sure though that she hated her stature had this effect on men) but small men were a target of mockery. He was even taller than Mulder, and he was only seventeen. Maybe he would still grow a couple of inches. 

When Mulder got back with dinner, Scully and Jackson had already laid the table. They ate mostly in silence, Mulder and Jackson eating with their hands gobbling down their food like hungry wolves, Scully picking listlessly at her salad with a fork. The unsalted sweet potato fries remained untouched but Jackson watched how delicate manicured fingers made their way into the box with the regular fries. She put a handful of the salty, greasy food into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, licked her fingers with relish, which was then followed by a satisfied hum. Mulder didn’t even look up as all of this happened, he registered it out of the corner of his eye and just smirked slightly. Jackson couldn’t help but think that they acted so much like a married couple; as if they had known each other for years and years. How could they not be living at this place together? Well, he would get more hints about their relationship once the sleeping arrangements were discussed. 

When they had finished their food and Scully got up to clear the table, Mulder grabbed her wrist and made her sit back down. “Nuh-uh, Scully, let the neglectful gender take care of this. How about you make yourself comfortable on the sofa with Daggoo?”

“Nice idea, Mulder, but someone has to change the sheets in the guest room. I can’t see you taking care of this after my last sleepover.” 

With this, she vanished into the hallway and left Mulder and Jackson alone with a very uncomfortable silence. Finally, Jackson addressed the elephant in the room. He needed clarity anyway, he might as well ask. 

“I thought you guys were married.” 

“Uh, no, we’re not.”

“So you’re divorced.” 

Jackson simply assumed they had to be divorced if they weren’t married. They had a child together, him, so they had to be married sometime in the past. He wasn’t prudish or anything, he knew people had sex without being married, but where he came from people got married when they wanted to have children.

“No. We…erm, we never got married.” 

“Well, it makes sense then,” Jackson said. 

“What makes sense?” 

“That your last names are different.”

“Our last names don’t have much to do with it, actually. Even if we had gotten married, I doubt we would ever have been Mr. and Mrs. Mulder. I guess we simply missed the right moment to tie the knot. I asked her once to marry me but she didn’t believe I was serious.”

“Were you?” 

“Hmm…I don’t know. Maybe not a hundred percent. But if she’d said yes, I wouldn’t have regretted asking.” 

“And the topic has never come up again?” 

“No.”

“Not even from her?” 

“No.” 

“Strange. I thought all women wanted to get married and have kids.” 

“Scully isn’t like other women. Her independence is very important to her. We weren’t any less committed to each other because we weren’t married, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s why. Our commitment to one another was so strong, we didn’t need a wedding certificate to prove it.”

“Whatever, you spared yourselves an ugly divorce with your separation.” 

“What makes you think we’re separated?” 

“Well, you’ve been talking about 'mine’ and 'yours’ a lot, like separated people do. Daggoo is her dog that cannot stay at her place but needs to stay at yours. The mess we stumbled into also was yours, Dana made that clear. And she sleeps in the guest room. All of that cries out 'separation’. I have a good power of observation.”

Jackson had seen it happening to a friend’s family. Everything that had belonged to the family before became branded with 'mine’ and 'yours’ all of a sudden. His friend’s mom even sawed through the leather couch with a chainsaw just to get even with her former husband who had cheated on her.

“Hmm, you have a point but…uhm, how is the fact she’s called this our house when we were in the car fit into your theory?” 

“Freudian slip?” 

Mulder chuckled. “That would never happen to Scully.” Looking at Jackson’s puzzled face he added, “I’m sorry, pal, this must all be very confusing. This is our house, we bought it together and lived in it together. We lived like a married couple for many years and people mistook us as married many times but we never actually were married.”

“Lived. Not live. Like in we did that in the past but not anymore.”

Mulder sighed heavily before he answered. “Right, that’s over. Look, Jackson, our lives have always been…difficult and complicated. Due to our work. There was a time we thought we could leave it all behind us, at least Scully did. She wanted a restart so badly. She’d lost so much because of our work, most importantly you, and all she wanted was normalcy. A job, a home, a partner to share her life with. And I tried to give it to her, all of it, but I failed her. I couldn’t let go of my quest for the truth, and I ruined everything. So, one day the inevitable happened: she packed her things and left to save herself from being pulled underwater with me. She needed to get out of here to be able to breathe. But Scully wouldn’t be Scully if she left me to my fate. She still cared. She looked after me and helped me find my way again.”

“And what’s your status now? I mean, you take care of her dog, you know exactly what food to order for her, she stays over…” 

“We’ve never stopped being friends. We’ve never stopped…caring deeply for each other. She just doesn’t live here anymore.” 

Mulder felt a bit awkward talking to his son so openly about his romantic feelings for Scully, that they had never stopped loving each other, but the boy deserved to know, didn’t he? 

“I just don’t want to impose.” 

“Impose?” 

Mulder didn’t understand. His face apparently showed his puzzlement because Jackson explained, “I don’t want to force the two of you together, you know. I don’t want you to think you have to do all this,” he was fidgeting with his hands in the air making clear he meant what was happening at this very moment in this house, “just because of me.” 

“Just because of you?” Mulder parroted, disbelief threaded into his voice. “Are you crazy, Jackson? You are the best thing that ever happened to us. You’ve been our miracle. The time you were with us was the happiest time of our lives. It was much too short, especially for me, but neither of us ever wanted to miss it. We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure us out. You simply have to trust us. I know it’s not easy after what we’ve done but…”

Mulder stopped abruptly when Scully’s purposeful steps could be heard on the floorboard. She was making her way back to them and he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know of Jackson’s concerns about their relationship and his staying with them. 

“Your room is all set, Jackson,” she said entering the living room. “It’s upstairs on the right. I left a towel on the bed in case you’d like to take a shower. Is there anything else you need?” The delight in her eyes told Mulder how much she enjoyed doing this and the thought that their son felt uncomfortable about it clasped his heart with a cold fist. 

“Thanks,” was all Jackson mumbled. He didn’t even look at Scully. She either didn’t notice or didn’t want to acknowledge it. She continued undeterred, “if you need anything, we’ll be down here. Just ask.” 

He did ask, laying his finger right into the wound. “Where are you guys sleeping? Just in case I need something at night.”

The question was dangling between them for a moment, both Scully and Mulder taken off guard by the directness of it. Jackson held his breath, quite aware it was a delicate issue. He wondered who would take the initiative and answer, and, of course, how. 

It was Mulder who was able to find his voice again. “The master bedroom is also upstairs, at the other side of the hallway,” he answered, avoiding the issue of who would be sleeping in there. He wasn’t sure what Scully’s sleeping arrangement would look like. They had shared a bed a few times recently - platonically and two times not so platonically - but she hadn’t moved back in. On her nights over she had always insisted they slept apart, Mulder in the master bedroom and her in the guest room. They were far from resuming their romantic relationship. He wasn’t even sure if they were in anything other than a relationship of friendly co-workers. Or co-working friends? Well, they were co-working best friends formerly lovers, if he was precise. To him, she was still his constant, his touchstone, that had never ceased to be the truth, but he wasn’t sure what she saw in him. Well, he could go around the status of their relationship over and over until he went mad, whatever it was, it was so them: complicated, in-flux, undefined. 

Mulder caught Jackson’s questioning look and held it, hoping he would leave it at that. He didn’t want Scully to feel obliged to explain or even defend herself. They were all exhausted from what had happened in the factory, now wasn’t the time to discuss their long-term future. They needed sleep and when they were replenished, they could have a talk. 

To Mulder’s immense relief, he watched how tiredness was overwhelming Jackson. His eyelids drooping, he yawned extensively. Mulder let the breath out he had been holding when Jackson finally acquiesced. “Okay, I think I should get some shut-eye.” With this, the boy turned around and headed for the stairs. 

Mulder and Scully looked after him. Their eyes remained trained at the top of the stairs until their son disappeared from their view. They listened to a door open and close and eventually to the shower being turned on. “Goodnight, my son,” Scully whispered to herself, hiccuping a sob which awakened Mulder from his trance-like state. He looked at her and realized she was shaking. The last few weeks were finally taking their toll on her. Mulder knew how much it took to make Scully break down. What had happened since she had realized her seizure was caused by her lost son who tried to communicate with her definitely was enough to make her falter. She was inches away from shattering into a million pieces, like a crystal glass bursting to a high note sung by an opera singer. 

Mulder turned toward her and pulled her into an embrace. The willingness with which she was giving in told him he had assessed the situation correctly. She melted into him, laying her head against his chest. She wasn’t wearing her heels anymore and their height difference was at its maximum expression. Mulder had always loved it when she was like that, bare of all the paraphernalia of Professional Scully. She allowed only a handful of people to see her without the makeup to hide her freckles and the sensual mole on her upper lip, the business suit to cover her feminine curves, and the heels to make her taller than she actually was. And he was lucky to be one of those few people. 

They stayed like this, mute and still, for a long time. Eventually, Scully took a deep breath and pulled back, a clear sign she had regained her strength. But she didn’t let go of Mulder completely. She looked into his eyes and smiled. “How about a glass of red wine, Mulder? I think I’m too stirred up to be able to sleep although I’m totally drained. Do you have a nice bottle somewhere?” 

“What about the one Skinner gave us when we signed the sales contract for this house?” 

“You still have that bottle?” 

“It’s a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it needs to rest a long time. Wine of this quality gets better with age. Just like us,” he added with a smile. “I’ve waited for the right moment to open it and if this is not a good moment to have a first-class wine I don’t know what is. You make yourself comfortable on the couch, I’ll go and fetch it.” 

He knew exactly where the bottle was, where he had put it all those years ago when Skinner had handed it to him with a smile on his face. Their boss had been as happy and confident as them that settling permanently into a house would be the beginning of a new life for them. It hadn’t come quite as they all had hoped. With Mulder sliding into a depression and Scully thriving as a doctor in her new job they had slowly grown apart. Funny that a relationship so unique as theirs had been susceptible to a development so cliché. But that had been then and now was now. Their son was sleeping peacefully upstairs, they were on the right track repairing their relationship, this was the perfect moment to open this bottle. 

When he returned from the pantry where he had indeed found the 2008 Châteauneuf-du-Pape exactly where he thought it would be, Scully had already resumed her place on the couch next to Daggoo who was snoring slightly in his sleep. A corkscrew and two red wine glasses were waiting for them on the coffee table, most certainly placed on coasters. Scully hated stains on the table’s surface. 

Mulder placed himself next to her and leaned his back against the backrest. He was holding the bottle in his hands and looked at the label. Skinner had written something on it which had faded over time and was hardly legible anymore. He pulled his new glasses out - progressives, no bifocals - and tried to decipher the words. He had never been good at reading Skinner’s scribble, Scully was so much better at it. 

“Scully, can you read this?” he asked, passing the bottle to her. 

She looked at the label and squinted. “I think so,” she said. She didn’t even need glasses. 

“What does it say? Are you going to tell me?”

“It says, 'Always remember who your friends are. Skinner.’ That’s it.”

Mulder took the bottle back to open it. He carefully inserted the corkscrew, cautious not to damage the cork which could be brittle after such a long time. After he had pulled it out, he checked for a corky smell but it seemed fine. He poured some of the red liquid into their glasses, the rest into a decanter. The wine would need time to breathe to develop its full taste. He handed a glass to Scully, they clinked, then put the glasses to their lips. 

Scully only hummed when the liquid was running down her throat, Mulder clicked his tongue. “Jeez, this is good,” he said. 

“It sure is,” she agreed. “What he wrote on the label makes me think, Mulder.”

“Think what?” 

“That Skinner has always been our friend. That we’ve been unfair to him probably, having thought he betrayed us. Remember when he came to the hospital after my seizure and you started a fight with him?”

“He’d acted weird and he did smell like smoke.” 

“Yes, he did, but we should’ve given him credit instead of assuming he’d be working against us. Looking back at it now, I believe that he was indeed coming to us after a meeting with the Smoking Man, a meeting where he had probably been told about Spender’s deluded idea that he was Jackson’s biological father. Skinner tried to keep this information from us, Mulder. He tried to protect us from it. He has always been our friend, and we were too paranoid to see it.”

“We weren’t paranoid, Scully. The threat was real. I had just stopped a man from suffocating you by cutting his throat and then Skinner came stumbling in after having been unreachable for hours, smelling like smoke and wearing a face so explicitly blank…what were we supposed to make of it?”

“And still, we should’ve known that he would never switch sides. He’s an honest soul who’s covered our asses more than once.”

“That’s true enough, but when it comes to you, Scully, I will never risk trusting the wrong people.”

“Trust no one, huh?” 

“That motto saved our lives a few times.”

Some of the occasions he was referring to came to Scully’s mind. She put the glass to her lips with a sigh and took another sip. The wine had breathed enough already to develop some of the rich, red-fruit aroma and herbaceous note for which it was famous. Scully hummed delightfully. 

“This really is a good wine, Mulder. I’m glad you remembered you had this in your pantry. You’re not stocked as badly as I thought,” she teased him. 

Under normal circumstances, Mulder would have taken her remark as the opening of one of their casual banters but the circumstances weren’t normal. His son was resting safely upstairs in the guest room, or rather the son he had always believed was his. He had heard things tonight that made him doubt his fatherhood. 

“Is it really true, Scully?” he asked abruptly without any adequate introduction. 

“Is what true, Mulder?” 

“That I am his father?” 

Scully took a sharp intake of breath. She set her glass aside, turned toward Mulder and looked him in the eye. She then took his glass out of his hand and placed it next to hers on the coffee table. Taking his hands in hers, feeling his slight tremor, she gave them a reassuring squeeze before she started speaking.   
“Yes, you are his father. I’d been feeling it so strongly from the moment I was told that I was pregnant. You were missing, then gone, and for so many months I believed the baby growing inside me was to be my only connection to you. I knew it was yours.” 

“But you ran multiple tests anyway.” 

“You know me, I seek proof of what I want myself to take as fact. And I got myself proof. I am a thorough scientist, Mulder, my proof is one hundred percent reliable. You are Jackson’s father, the DNA doesn’t lie. If you want, and if Jackson is okay with it, we can do another paternity test.”

“No, I trust your scientific evaluation, Scully. I always have.”

They smiled at each other briefly before Scully’s expression changed. Mulder’s face had been the one marked by worry a moment ago, now it was hers. “Do you think he will stay with us?” she voiced her concern.

“I hope so.” 

“We just got him back,” Scully whispered close to tears, “I don’t want to lose him again.”

“Me neither, but I guess him sleeping upstairs is a good sign. He trusts us. He protected me when he…erm, got rid of those Purlieu people coming after us.” 

“You mean when he made their bodies explode?” 

“Yeah, well, our son does have extraordinary abilities. Given all the weird stuff I’ve seen, this wins first prize but what I was getting at is that he made sure I wasn’t harmed. And today he also got us out of there. He wants us to able to be there for him.”

“I hope you’re right. If I could be his mother again…” Scully hiccuped. 

“You have always been his mother, Scully. Maybe he isn’t aware of it, but I am.”

“Thank you, Mulder.” 

They gazed at each other and Mulder’s heart was overflowing with compassion for Scully. How much had this woman had to endure? How come she was still sane and hadn’t gone completely mad after what life had burdened her with? He admired her so much for her strength. 

“Jesus Christ, I so want to kiss you right now, Scully. May I?" 

Anxiety over possible rejection was creeping up Mulder’s spine when a tear started running down her cheek but he had to finish what he had started. When she nodded, more tears spilling, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her as softly as he could. This wasn’t about passion but about companionship, about a life lived together, about an unwavering feeling of love for her. 

"We will make this work, Scully. I am sure of it. You, me, and Jackson. We will make this…this family thing work. Maybe he will never call us mom and dad but somehow we will manage to be parents to him.”

Scully leaned into Mulder and put her head on his shoulder. She hummed silently and took another sip of wine. 

“This is nice, Mulder. You and me together here on this couch, this wonderful wine, our son upstairs in the room I had always thought would have been his if things had been different.”

Mulder thought back to his earlier conversation with Jackson, how insecure the boy had been about their current relationship and how he fit in. 

“Let’s give it try, Scully. Let’s give Jackson a stable structure, something which comes close to what he had with his adoptive parents. He still is a kid, he shouldn’t have to doubt where he belongs. I want him to feel he belongs to us. Move back in.”

His words echoed in the silence that followed. Mulder couldn’t see her reaction to his bold suggestion as Scully’s head was nestled against the spot where his shoulder met his neck. He already feared he had pushed too hard when he heard her whisper, “but there’s no extra room for me anymore.” 

“Do we really need an extra room? The guest room has always been intended to be his, not yours. Our bed is too big for me alone, it never felt good sleeping in it on my own. I wish for nothing more than us being together again. Not only as co-workers but as partners. Life partners. We could make it legal even, maybe adopt him back if we can. We could be a family. Officially, for everyone to see. The Mulders. Or the Scullys, if you want. I don’t care. I only care about us, us three being together.” 

Scully straightened and pushed herself back from Mulder. She looked at him with wide eyes. Putting her hand on his forehead, she stammered, “are…are you running a f-fever, Mulder?” 

“I’m in my right mind, and I am serious.”

“Fox William Scully?” she offered, giving him her trademark arching eyebrow. 

“Mr. Dana Scully,” he replied with a boyish grin, “sounds good to me.” 

Scully brushed a tear off her cheek and laughed. “I’ll ask you again tomorrow when you’re down from your high; whatever caused it.”

Mulder left it at that. He knew there was no use arguing now. She probably needed time to let his suggestion sink in, or rather his proposal. He had really and truly proposed to her! How many years had he waited now to pop the question a second time? What an irony that again she didn’t believe he meant what he said, that he was under the influence of something clouding his judgment. She couldn’t be further from the truth. He was as sober and clear in his head as humanly possible and he had no problems at all asking her again tomorrow. He would ask her as often as necessary until she considered his proposal to be credible. 

Scully nestled back into Mulder’s side and put her feet on the coffee table. He placed his long legs alongside hers, his thigh touching hers. When her head was back at its prior resting place on his shoulder he kissed her hair. This was exactly how it was supposed to be, he didn’t need more to be happy. Scully in his arms, hopefully, his wife-to-be, his son upstairs in the second bedroom, and the prospect of a family life. It almost ached physically to imagine a happy future was waiting for him around the corner. And then Scully said something that made his heart skip a beat. 

“You should ask Skinner to be your best man.” 

Now it was Mulder who dissolved their snuggling position. Sitting up straight with eyes wide as saucers and his heart in his mouth, he stammered, “what? Was…was that a yes, Scully? Do I have to check you for fever now?” 

She laughed wholeheartedly, a sound which had always made his heart swell. “If you could only see your face, Mulder! There’s terror written all over it. You haven’t seen this coming, have you, Mr. Scully?” 

“You always keep me guessing.” Mulder resumed his prior position next to her. He took her free hand which rested on her thigh and intertwined their fingers. “So? Are we engaged now?” he asked tentatively. 

“I think so,” Scully answered. 

“Wow.” 

“Yeah, wow.” 

On the landing at the top of the stairs, there was another person thinking the same: Wow! They are doing this for me!

Jackson had been on his way down to get a glass of water when he had heard his name. He was touched by how anxious they were about him and how much they wanted to make this work. And suddenly they had been talking about marriage and Mulder had even suggested reinstating their parenthood by reversing the adoption. Jackson wasn’t sure what he thought about it, if it would feel like he betrayed the Van De Kamps if he became a Mulder. But no, wait a minute, if at all, he would become a Scully. Jackson Scully…it sounded unfamiliar but okay.

Another idea sneaked itself into his mind on its own accord. What if…? 

No! That wasn’t really an option, was it? 

Maybe, it was. Maybe it was exactly the right thing to mark this new phase of his life. 

What if he took his old name? His birth name? If Mulder was willing to let go of his name to mark their family bond, he could do the same, William Scully didn’t sound so bad. 

William Jackson Scully. 

He let the name roll off his tongue in a whisper. 

Fox, Dana and William Scully. The Scullys. It would be the three of them against the rest of the world. It was a soothing thought that made Jackson smile. He abandoned his plan to get some water and retreated to his room. He didn’t want to disturb them downstairs. If they were to kiss again, he didn’t want to be ogling. 

Jackson had just left his observation post and was closing the door to the guest room behind him as Mulder was cupping Scully’s face and leaning in to kiss her. The boy had escaped his parents’ caresses for now but was doomed to witness them over and over in the time to come.


End file.
